It
is not. How anything can be gay with _Pyrethrum uliginosum_ I cannot
imagine. An attitude of reverent sympathy is what I should have expected
the garden to have. But that is what the man says.
Then there is the greenhouse. "From now onwards," he writes, "the
greenhouse will meet with a more welcome appreciation than it has during
the summer months. The chief plants in flower will be _Lantanas_,
_Campanula pyramidalis_, _Zonal Pelargoniums_," and about twenty more. "Oh,
they will, will they?" I thought, and opened the greenhouse door and looked
in. Against the wall there were two or three mouldering peach-trees, and
all over the roof and floor a riot of green tomatoes, a fruit which even
when it becomes ruddy-faced I do not particularly like. In a single large
pot stood a dissipated cactus, resembling a hedgehog suffering from mange.
But what was even more bitter to me than all this ruin and desolation was
the thought of the glorious deeds I might have been doing if the garden had
been all right. Phrases from the book kept flashing to my eye.
"Thoroughly scrub the base and sides of the pots, and see that the
drainage-holes are not sealed with soil." How it thrilled the blood!
"Damp the floors and staging every morning and afternoon, and see that the
compost is kept uniformly moist.
Pages:
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26